Software systems are made of numerous components or code. Components may be classified into various and numerous classes. Classes may define functionality of components. When development, integration, and/or maintenance of the software system takes place, it is important for users or developers to know the associated functionality of the classes. Typically, this is determined using notes or annotation that is associated with classes. With numerous classes, the task may be difficult to find and determine annotation of the classes.
In object oriented languages, such as Java programming language, annotation may be provided by a tag; however there is no simple or easy way to determine classes and their annotation. A developer or user may have to check each and every class as to its annotation. Furthermore, for certain implementations, it is desirable to be able to seek certain classes that are particularly annotated. For example, current platforms, such as Java programming language based platforms may seek or scan for Java methods that are annotated with “@RuleFunction”; a meta data framework (MDF) may seek for Java methods annotated with “@MDFEntity”; platforms may seek Java classes that are annotated with “@Name”; platforms may seek Java servlets with annotation defined by particular specifications; and so on.
Typical methods to seek classes include a “scanner” method. The scanner method is direct, but may slow startup. Another method is a “registration” method. The registration method may be faster, but a user may have to manually register the classes.